It is time to take this legal battle out of the spotlight its not that big of a deal. It’s not like she’s Patti Labelle or Gladys Knight!

Ashanti filed a federal lawsuit against her former producer on Jan. 27, claiming he had no right to release demo tapes she recorded about eight years ago.
According to BillboardBiz.com, the singer is seeking $1 million in damages for unfair competition, invasion of privacy, trademark infringement, and lost wages, among other charges.

The suit was filed in the U.S. District Court in New York and names as defendants: Genard Parker; TEAM Entertainment of Ellenwood, Georgia; German distributor ZYX Music; Australian companies Big Records Australia and Rajon Distribution; Japanese label Farm Records; and U.K. companies Simply Vinyl Recordings and Unique Corporation.

Ashanti claims that while recording demos for Parker and TEAM to shop for a major label deal in 1997 when she was 16, they never landed a deal. Despite the fact that she never authorized them to release the demos as an album, Parker put out the compilation album “Can’t Stop” last year, which appeared in several markets with Ashanti’s name in big, bold print and recent photographs of her on the covers.

She claims that only two tracks on the album actually feature her on lead vocals, while another tune credited to her doesn’t feature her vocals at all.

The lawsuit is the latest in a mess of legal matters between Ashanti and Parker. Last July, Parker and TEAM won a breach-of-contract judgment against her for $630,000 on claims that the then-16-year-old had not honored the terms of the release agreement she signed after first contracting with them to produce future albums.

Ashanti is currently signed to The Inc., formerly Murder Inc., which released her fourth studio album, Concrete Rose, in 2004.